In November 2000, The Coca-Cola Co. in Atlanta paid $192.5 million to settle a highly publicized class-action lawsuit involving about 2,000 African-American employees who alleged wide disparities in pay and promotions. In terms of illustrating racial bias as corporate policy, the settlement represented just the tip of the iceberg...
Aggressive marketing to children of nutritionally worthless and damaging products. Coke paid Warner Brothers, a subsidiary of Time Warner, $150 million for exclusive global marketing rights to the Harry Potter movies, the first of which was released in November of 2001. Obviously, the whole point of Coke’s investment was to entice kids to consume more soft drinks...
Coke admits marketing fraud, settles ‘whistleblower’ lawsuit. In June, 2003, the public got a rare glimpse of Coke’s corrupt business practices when the company acknowledged that employees manipulated the results of a marketing test of Frozen Coke at Burger King restaurants.
Overexploitation and pollution of water sources in India.Of the 200 countries where Coca-Cola is sold, India reportedly has the fastest-growing market, but the adverse environmental impacts of its operations there have subjected the parent company and its local bottlers to a firestorm of criticism and protest. There has been a growing outcry against Coca-Cola’s production practices in India, which are draining out vast amounts of public groundwater and turning farming communities into virtual deserts...
“Three communities in India — Plachimada in Kerala, Wada in Maharashtra and Mehdiganj in Uttar Pradesh — are experiencing severe water shortages as a result of Coca-Cola’s mining of the majority of the common groundwater resources around its facilities. Coke’s indiscriminate dumping of waste water into the ground has polluted the scarce water that remains. In Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu, residents are opposing a proposed Coca-Cola facility because of fears that they too will face water shortages and pollution..." http://www.killercoke.org/pdf/coke-abuses.pdf (See also http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2006/2009.html)
”Repressive, anti-worker policies in many foreign countries". Coke’s reputation has already suffered because of the actions of its subsidiaries and/or bottlers in Brazil, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, the Philippines and elsewhere.
Anti-competitive practices around the world. Coke frequently gets in trouble because of its trade practices and attempts to monopolize the beverage sector in many countries..
Does this sound like a responsible, ethical corporation?
http://www.killercoke.org/pdf/coke-abuses.pdf
Undrinkable.
And thats not even mentioning Colombia.
So intelligent, compassionate people of WP inform yourselves and lets boycott Coca-Cola for the above reasons. Find an alternative drink from a company that doesnt bully, that doesnt produce a product of the back of human misery and doesnt paint its rotten black core with shiny colours! Say No To Coke! Are you with me?
31 Mar 2007, 9:35 pm
